Welcome to Professional and Technical Services (PTS) – experts in chemical disinfection for infection prevention. Our goal is to educate and provide you the latest resources related to cleaning and disinfection of environmental surfaces, medical devices and hands. As specialists in disinfectant chemistries, microbiology, environmental cleaning and disinfection, facility assessments and policy and procedure creation we are dedicated to helping any person or facility who uses chemical disinfectants.

Our commitment to providing chemical disinfectant education is more than business, it is a passion.

Friday, September 15, 2017

Poopy Love from Puppies

As I’ve mentioned before, I grew up on a farm. We raised beef cows, capons (neutered male
chickens) and grew cash crops (wheat, corn, soya beans, etc). As any good animal loving country girl can
probably attest, you can make a pet out of virtually any animal. Some of my favorites were Joy our Jersey who, while a cow,
we rode like a horse; there was also Cookie the Capon, Miss Piggy, Herman and
Hersey (also cows), Rainbow my thoroughbred horse, Pursey my albino rabbit, Mr.
Boots my Dutch belted
rabbit, Sparky a very vocal guinea pig and of course we always had a dog or
two and lots and lots of cats. I played
in our barns, I’ve mucked my fair share of stalls and yes, I’ve been known to
get into manure fights while mucking stalls. I’m pretty sure at some point in
my life I’ve eaten poop – unknowingly of course, but I’m sure it’s had to have
happened.

While acknowledging in a public forum that I’ve eaten poop,
what I can say is that when coming in from the barn I always washed my hands. I
washed my hands after playing with our pets, before eating, and I NEVER let any
of our animals lick my face or kiss them in any close vicinity to their
tongues. How many of you can say the
same? Not to shame you if you have, but
GROSS!!!! Do you know where those mouths
and those tongues have been?

Well….those darn adorable puppies can also be the cause of
outbreaks. In fact, the CDC is currently investigating a
multi-state Campylobacter outbreak in people that have been linked to puppies
purchased from a chain of pet stores. At
least 39 people across 7 states have been identified and the cause has been
linked to puppies sold by a chain of pet stores based in Ohio. Of the 39 people, 12 are employees while the
remaining 27 have been directly linked to either purchasing a puppy from the
store or visited the store. The CDC does
not yet know the exact cause of the outbreak and it may be difficult to ever
pinpoint the exact cause.

Campylobacteritself is a bacterium that can infect dogs, cats and humans. There are a number of different strains of Campylobacter that can be found in many
of our food production animals so it is most frequently linked to eating raw or
undercooked meat. Typical symptoms include diarrhea, abdominal pains and fever
that can last for about a week. Person
to person transmission is rare, but transmission from exposure to dog feces is
possible. Washing your hands after
handling poop and after touching your dog is recommended – I would hazard a
guess that’s not realistic for many dog lovers!
While the CDC does not call it out, letting your dog lick you or kissing
on the mouth should also be avoided….dogs do clean themselves down there you
know!

Bugging Off!

Nicole

P.S. Next week it will
be a toss-up between a study about how alcohol fixes soil to medical devices or
a study on bleach causing COPD. If you
have a preference tweet and let me know!